Monday, November 30, 2009

Every Angel is Terrifying

Every Angel is Terrifying: The Secret and True Origin of the Slayer and Watchers

Note: This is repost of something I did on the Eden Buffy boards a while back. I have been working on collecting all my notes from my three season run of "Willow & Tara: The Series" for the Buffy/Angel/Ghost of Albion RPG and thought I might share this. I am not a fan of Buffy anymore, for a number of reasons, but I do like this write-up.

I was never satisfied with the version of the Watcher's and Slayer's origins given in the show. Plus the demon connection and overt rape metaphor never sat well with me. So I decided it must be part of a propaganda agenda of the demons. Here then is the true history of the Slayer and the Watchers. This version also makes Buffy more compatible with WitchCraft and Armageddon. It also allows multiple Slayers (or not) without worrying about what happened in the show. It also adresses (a little) a short-coming of the show; where are all the angels?

Something to bide me over till I can get something new up.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.Every angel is terrifying.- Rainer Maria Rilke*

The Council of Watchers of today bares little resemblance to powerful organization it once was, most due to machinations of the Great Beast Belial, but that is getting to the middle of the story first, let’s start at the beginning, which is in this case The Beginning.

Everyone knows of the War in Heaven. Lucifer rebels and the Angels are cast out. There was also a second war, and the Watchers and Slayers start here.

After Lucifer fell Man and Woman were created. Adam and Lilith. Lilith, either by her own designs or that of Lucifer also rebels and goes out to spawn demons with the Djinn. Adam gets a new helpmate, Eve, and they are fruitful and multiply. Seeing the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve populating the Earth God sends Angels down to protect them and watch over them. These Angels are known as the Grigori, or “the Watchers”, and their leaders are Azazel and Samyaza. The Watchers though looked upon the Daughters of Eve and lusted after them. They taught them the secrets of divination, of the moon and of witchcraft. They also took them to their beds and begat upon them progeny known as the Nephilim. They were giants of their age, and most are monstrosities; Goliath may have been one of their number. The Nephilim war with both the demons and with other humans. Humans war with the demons and Nephilim. Demons kill everything in their path. All the while, Lucifer and his fallen angels laugh.

The actions of the Angels angers God who casts them into Abyss and sends a flood to destroy the wickedness of mankind. But before this happens the Watcher Shamsiel (in some versions it is Samyaza) goes to the one human woman who was never corrupted by Original Sin, the one who never ate from the Tree of Knowledge, Lilith. Shamsiel asked Lilith for one thing, an offspring. Someone that can fight the demons and the Nephilim while protecting the humans. Lilith laughed, but consented, after all she was giving birth to countless demons, what was one more. She gave birth though not to a monstrous son, but a perfect daughter. She named her Naamah and sent her to live with Shamsiel. Shamsiel in turn gave her to the human woman he had sleeping with and her husband. He instructed them to take on his role as Watcher, for this child would be the slayer of demons and the other spawn of darkness. Shamsiel went to his final battle never to return.

Naamah, daughter of Lilith, protector of Malkuth, grew strong, though she was never loved by her foster parents. They taught her the same lessons the Watchers had taught them, combat, the secrets of the occult, the arts of war and witchcraft. While the demons recognized her as kin she hung on to her angelic heritage. She fought them and the Watchers stood by her in the fight. Some even say that she stowed away on Noah’s Ark, knowing that that evil would find a way to survive. Some texts even still list her as Noah’s wife or sometimes his daughter. Even later when she died, she died fighting. One of her many daughters took up the fight and she too became known as the Slayer. In those days when the demons ran free over the Earth there were many Slayers and many Watchers. The original Grigori had spanned the Earth, and so had their progeny. It seemed that the battle was going well for humanity. Till Lucifer and his left-hand devil Belial took an interest in the Slayer. They had already begun a propaganda war against her. She was the spawn of demons they said, she was the patroness of whores. Indeed, the powers of the Slayer were related to her gender and even to her sexual maturity, so some of the ignorant believed this and forced the Slayer out. Some even began to feel she brought trouble with her. The pogrom against the Slayer had begun.

Even the Watchers, having spanned globe and taking up their cause with the Pagan faiths, were not immune. Here they meshed their beliefs with their own. They believed that they and their books were what were really holding back the darkness. They created their world headquarters on the mystical islands and listed in their charter the charge given to them by God, rendered in the local tongue.

Óir thug sé ordú da aingil i do thaobh:tú a chosaint i do shlite go léir:

Satlóidh tú ar an leon is ar an nathair:gheobhaidh tú de chosa sa leon óg is a dragan.

That was not even the start for Belial and the Watchers. The Great Deceiver Belial tricked Lilith into revealing her offspring’s true nature. Knowing this Belial then worked on the Watchers. “Why should she be in charge?” he whispered in their ears. “Why would men of good faith follow the dictates of a demon-spawned female child?” It took him years, but soon he broke down their resolve, their myths and soon under the guise of “the good for all” he had them change their own histories. Gone was the story of Naamah and her sisters. Gone was the relationship between Watcher and Slayer as one of equals. And most tragic, gone was the link between the Slayer and the Divine. Instead only the demonic remained and Slayer but a tool, oft times a disposable one.

But Lilith had her own revenge. If they were to treat her blood so poorly, then she called back her own power only allowing one girl per generation to be born. She infused her other children, the Vampires, with desire to find this girl and hunt her down. Like brother and sister they were then, equal in their strength and parallel in their purpose. Soon the Slayer only became know as a killer of vampires and the Watchers, feeding on their own lies, degraded and rotted from within.

Rule 1-2-3: A Super-Simple RPG Mechanic
-
While preparing my Stuper Powers adventure for the upcoming convention season, I remembered that this particular RPG is kind of lacking in the mechanics depa...